


One Summer's Day

by AtypicalOwl



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: F/M, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:19:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4244082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtypicalOwl/pseuds/AtypicalOwl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roshaun and Dairine disagree about what a comfortable temperature is, Kit tries to teach the mobiles to play volleyball with highly unintended results, and a cactus is used as a threat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Summer's Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Geekhyena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geekhyena/gifts).



> One of Geekhyena's prompts tickled my fancy, and while I am not the official author for her requests, I figured an extra dose of fluff would not be remiss.

“No! Get out! It’s too hot!”

A muffled thump echoed around the Callahan backyard, followed by a drawn out groan. Harry looked up from his weeding to see an uncommon sight: a slightly dazed alien prince on the ground next to the hammock, where he had landed in a very undignified fashion.

Dairine, sitting in the still-rocking hammock, made a face at Roshaun. “And stay out! No cuddling in this weather!”

“I do not see what the problem is,” Roshaun said, pulling himself upright. “The weather is perfectly temperate.”

“It is ninety-five degrees!” Dairine screeched. “Maybe that’s temperate to you, but _I’m_ dying!”

Roshaun approached the hammock again, looking concerned.

“Ugh no! Figure of speech! Back off! You are going to _stick_ to me in this humidity!” Dairine said, waving a hand at him.

Roshaun huffed, but settled in a nearby lawn chair instead. “I do not see why sticking to you would be disagreeable. And the amount of moisture in the air is quite pleasant.”

Dairine rolled her eyes and fell backwards into the hammock, sending it swinging again. “I can handle a dry heat just fine, but this humidity is killing me! And my hair!” She ran a hand through it for emphasis, making a tuft of red poke out above the edge of the hammock.

“No, moisture in the air is a good thing,” Roshaun said patiently. “Dry heat can be dangerous, but when it’s moist, it can—”

“Hey, I’m stopping you right there,” Dairine interrupted. “There is no circumstance in which humidity like this is a good thing!”

Harry chuckled at their bickering, then turned his attention back to the weeding, uprooting a dandelion with perhaps a little more force than the little plant deserved. Usually, he didn’t mind the chore, but Dairine was right; the heat and humidity was a little too much today, and he wanted to just get it over with so that he could go inside and have a cool drink.

In the background, he could hear Roshaun and Dairine still arguing. It sounded like it was going to become a genuine fight before long, with tempers fueled by the heat. He wondered if he should get up and intervene.

“…Great Fire of 49301 could have been prevented if the humidity was— Ack!” Roshaun’s tirade about humidity was cut short by a splash and a lot of spluttering. Harry looked up to see Roshaun shaking water off of his back, and Dairine shaking the hammock with her laughter.

Across the yard, Nita and Kit were high-fiving with their free hands, their other hands occupied by bags of water balloons.

“That enough humidity for you?” Kit called.

Dairine and Roshaun exchanged a look, all of their earlier animosity forgotten. Then, in unison, they turned to glare at Nita and Kit. Harry couldn’t see their expressions from his angle, but it was enough to send them running, dropping a few water balloons in their wake.

“Want to bring them down?” Dairine asked.

“By all means,” said Roshaun.

“Awesome,” Dairine said. “Let me grab my stash of balloons and see if I can find my super soaker, then I’ll teach you the fine art of water balloon crafting.”

“Sounds like a splendid plan,” Roshaun said, pulling his hair back and securing it with a hairtie that he had probably stolen from Dairine.

Harry laughed and felt a little sorry for Nita and Kit, then stared at his garden and sighed. There was still an awful lot of weeding to do.

A tap on his shoulder startled him, and he turned around to see a little headless silicon turtle with many legs staring at him. Well, he assumed it was staring at him. It didn’t actually have visible eyes.

“Hi GIGO,” he said. “Did you need something?” He had almost forgotten that Dairine had brought a handful of mobiles home so they could have “summer vacation.”

“I have an inquiry,” GIGO said.

“Sure, ask away,” Harry said, grateful for the chance to procrastinate further.

“What are you doing?” GIGO asked, pointing at the garden. “How do you decide which plants to remove and which should stay?”

Wasn’t that just how Harry’s life was going recently? His daughters having a water fight with an alien prince while he taught a robot turtle about how to weed a garden. It was a good thing that Nita and Dairine assured him that there was a privacy field around the perimeter of the yard; otherwise, what would the neighbors think?

“I have a further inquiry,” GIGO said, after Harry finished explaining which plants were invasive and which belonged.

He gestured for GIGO to continue.

“Would you like some assistance?”

Harry blinked.

GIGO seemed to take his surprise as hesitation. “I would like to put theory into practice, some of my siblings have grip articulations that are highly suited to this task, and you do not seem to be looking forward to proceeding.”

As GIGO spoke, three more mobiles came out the back door. Nita had gone at them with a label maker earlier, so Harry quickly recognized them as Strawberry, Toto, and October.

“Sure,” he said. “I could use all the help I can get.”

“Wonderful!” Strawberry said. “We are pleased to assist!”

“Query?” October asked.

“Ask away, little one,” Harry said.

“May we replant the weeds elsewhere instead of discarding them?”

“Yes, please!” Toto chimed in. “Just because it was crowding the other plants is no excuse to waste life when we can preserve it!”

“How can I say no to that face?” Harry said. Not that the mobiles had much of a face, but they were still cute. Besides, he had an old planter in the shed that was just gathering dust; couldn’t hurt to let them plant some dandelions in it. Maybe it would give them a nice souvenir to take back to their planet. “I’ll get you something to put them in.”

The mobiles cheered a chorus of delight, and Harry’s smile threatened to hurt his face.

Then, he stumbled forward, knocked off balance by the water balloon that had just hit his back. The smile faded in unison with the mobiles’ cheering. The yard was silent but for the sound of the water dripping off of Harry’s shirt.

Slowly, he stood and turned. Nita, Kit, Roshaun, and Dairine were all standing frozen. He glared at them, and was pleased to see Kit gulp.

Nita and Dairine didn’t get _all_ of their fire from their mother, after all.

“You guys know I have the hose right next to me, right?” he said.

“Oh for—” Dairine started to say.

However that sentence would have ended, the world never did find out, as Harry cut it off with a blast of water from the hose sprayer. His aim was unerring as he soaked Roshaun, Kit, and Nita in quick succession. Finally, those long hours of trying to water the bushes on the far side of the yard without overextending the hose paid off!

Toto cheered Harry on. “Yes! Avenge yourself!”

“Saturation before dishonor!” Strawberry cried.

“Can we water the weeds when you’re done?” asked October.

“TRUCE, TRUCE!” Dairine screamed.

“Well, at least she’s no longer complaining about the heat,” said GIGO.

 

~~~~~

 

After everyone got calmed down and dried off, and the sun had gone down enough to appease everyone temperature-wise, Harry started dinner on the grill. He had a brief moment of panic over what to call the hot dogs, but Roshaun and the mobiles assured him that they all knew they were not really made from dogs. The mobiles had Googled it, and Roshaun had it explained to him by Dairine.

Crisis of processed meat nomenclature averted, most of the humanoids all settled around the patio table to watch Kit try to teach the mobiles how to play volleyball.

Harry cracked open a soda. “This ought to be good.”

“It’s simple, guys, we just use this bush as the net, and you pair off in teams, and then you serve it like this…” Kit demonstrated how to serve, fumbled it, and the ball flew in entirely the wrong direction, landing on the roof and getting stuck above one of the eaves.

Nita muttered a few words under her breath, and it rolled back down.

Kit rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Okay, so maybe it’s been a while since I’ve played.”

“I do not understand,” Toto said. “The teams are uneven; how do we play fairly?”

“Huh? Uneven how? ” Kit asked.

“Our team is me and Strawberry,” Toto explained. “Yours is you, GIGO, and October. Three to two is not fair.”

“I’m not actually—” Kit started.

“I have a solution!” Strawberry said. She scrambled over to where everyone was sitting and stopped in front of Roshaun.

He looked down at the little mobile with an amused expression. “Hm?”

“Will you play on our team, Dad?” Strawberry asked.

Harry choked on his soda.

Roshaun’s reaction was not much more restrained. “Dairine? I think Strawberry is malfunctioning!” he said, a slight note of panic in his voice.

“You little!” Dairine said. “No! He’s not your dad!”

The rest of the mobiles joined Strawberry in front of Roshaun. “But Mooooooom,” Toto said, drawing out the word like any petulant human child would. “You like him, and he likes you, and you’re so cute together, so he’s obviously our dad!”

“I cannot be a grandpa yet,” Harry choked out, dabbing his shirt with a napkin where he had dribbled soda. “Neither of my daughters has graduated high school!”

Roshaun sat back in his patio chair, perturbed. “I do not imagine this is the type of heir my parents were expecting either.”

“Please Dad? We need you on our team so we can _win_!” October said.

Nita stuffed her fist in her mouth, trying very hard not to laugh.

Kit, on the other hand, just gave into the laughter.

“I swear, I should ground all of you!” Dairine said, exasperated. “Spot! Can you control your siblings, please?”

Spot, who was sitting on a small table next to the grill, put up an eyestalk. “Sorry Mom, I can’t, I’m still helping grandpa look up recipes.”

Nita gave up and started laughing aloud along with Kit.

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut.

“You know… As far as in-laws go, I _do_ enjoy your father’s company,” Roshaun said. “The planet is somewhat strange, though.”

Harry exhaled sharply. “What. Planet?”

“Oh Dad, did I never tell you about the Motherboard?” Dairine slapped a hand to her forehead. “Oops! Duh. Okay, so when I had my Ordeal and made these little guys, I also kind of woke up the intelligence inside a giant silicon planet first…”

“Do you smell something burning?” Kit asked, giggles trailing off.

“The burgers!” Harry exclaimed, springing up and opening the grill to turn them. “Okay, you know what? I don’t need to know. This is just my life. My daughter is dating an alien and raising little robot turtles. This is not any weirder than the time the big purple centipede ate my old shed. I can deal with this.” He took a deep breath and kept turning the burgers.

Strawberry climbed up onto the patio table and turned her optical sensors between Dairine and Roshaun a few times.

“What?” Dairine asked. “Do I have something on my face?

“I was just wondering when we might expect slowlife siblings to join our family,” Strawberry said, tone incredibly innocent.

Dairine and Roshaun turned identical shades of red.

“You know what? Changed my mind. I can’t actually deal with this,” Harry said. He flipped the last burger, closed the grill again, and rested his head against the side of the house.

“Nita, Kit? Are you okay?” October asked. It was a valid question, given that Nita had fallen out of her chair laughing and Kit was close to it. Both were gasping for air.

“They are fine,” GIGO said. “I am more concerned about what Grandfather is doing.”

Harry was, in fact, gently smacking his forehead against the side of the house.

“That _cannot_ be good for the siding,” Strawberry observed.

“Nita,” Kit said, when he got some of his breath back. “Should I tell your dad about Carmela and Filif, or would that just make things worse?”

“I don’t know, Kit,” Nita gasped back. “Your family is pretty weird; he’d probably take it as par for the course after Ponch.”

“So, is that a ‘no’ to volleyball?” Toto asked.

 

~~~~~

 

After dinner, Harry asked Roshaun if he could talk to him alone for a minute. They went outside while the rest of them were setting up board games in the living room. Without preamble, Harry presented Roshaun with a small potted cactus; a stubby green barrel with bright red spines. Roshaun accepted it, bewildered.

“Ferocactus gracilis,” Harry said.

“Um, and the same to you?” Roshaun said, confused.

“No, that’s the species,” Harry explained. “Red barrel cactus.”

Roshaun didn’t have a good reply to that. “Um.”

“It’s a cactus. For you.”

“It is a very healthy-looking plant,” Roshaun said, casting about for something appropriate to say. “I am just unsure as to why you are giving it to me.”

“From what Dairine tells me, it should thrive in your planet’s climate.”

Roshaun inclined his head. “That’s thoughtful, but I still do not fully understand.”

Harry shrugged. “Think of it as a ‘welcome to the family’ gift. I’ve always thought that kind of cactus looks like Dairine.”

Roshaun considered that. “Red, spiky, hardy. Liable to cause injury if you’re not extremely careful. It does fit, I suppose. I shall think of you and her whenever I see it.”

“Good, good!” Harry smiled. “Just be careful of the spines. Because if you prick yourself on it, you will know a small fraction of the pain I will inflict on you should you ever hurt her.”

Roshaun blinked. “Oh.”

Nita opened the back door. “Dad, if you’re done giving Roshaun the shovel talk, game night is starting. We’re about to start Scrabble and we really could use all your plant names to even things out against Dairine’s technobabble.”

“Okay Nita, we’ll be right there.” After Nita went back inside, Harry turned back to Roshaun. “Okay, so. Cactus care. Just keep it in the sun, water it once a week at the most, that’s an Earth week, not your weeks. It will need to be fertilized in about a year, so just call me up and I’ll help you figure out how much to give it based on how big it is. Ditto if it gets too big for that pot; I’ll help you transplant it without hurting yourself.”

Roshaun nodded.

Harry went inside to save his daughter from his other daughter's Scrabble fury.

Roshaun made to follow, but paused to take another look at the potted cactus in his hand. With a shudder, he resolved to never underestimate a florist. They are SCARY.


End file.
